Information apparatus capable of selectively recording audio signal

ABSTRACT

An apparatus for recording, storing and retrieving electronic information allows the division of incoming information into separate events or portions of an event. The information is stored in a primary recording medium, such as a semiconductor memory, in accordance with the divisions created. The information can then be selectively reproduced, copied or flagged for further use.

This application is a division of application Ser. No. 08/735,209 filedOct. 22, 1996 and now U.S. Pat. No. 5,724,546, which is a file wrappercontinuation application of application Ser. No. 08/191,119, filed Feb.3, 1994, now abandoned.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

This invention relates to an information providing and collectingapparatus for efficiently collecting or preserving information, e.g.,news, etc.

2. Description of the Prior Art

The applicant of this application has already proposed, in thespecification and the drawings of the U.S. Ser. No. 08/131943, filed onOct. 8, 1993, as an apparatus for efficiently providing, collecting orpreserving information, e.g., news, etc., an information providing andcollecting apparatus adapted to transfer information such as speech(sound), etc. from an information providing device to an informationrecording device (recorder) provided with a recording medium comprisedof a semiconductor memory, etc., thus to collect such information.

In accordance with the information providing and collecting apparatusdescribed in the specification and the drawings which have been alreadyproposed, a user of the information recorder reproduces suchinformation, thereby making it possible to rapidly obtain information,e.g., news, etc.

Meanwhile, a recorder as described above is adapted so that once newinformation is taken thereinto, previous information disappears becauseit is repetitively used. In this case, it is sufficient to copy thecontent (the above-mentioned previous information) of a recording mediumonto another recording medium, e.g., a magneto-optical disk, etc. beforenew information is recorded.

However, ordinarily, in the case of information such as news mentionedabove, information that a user wishes to preserve for the future islimited. If all of this information is preserved on any other recordingmedium, that recording medium is filled with unnecessary information incapacity at once. In addition, in the case where there occurs thenecessity of making reference to such information later, a quantity ofinformation to be retrieved would be increased. As a result, it mighttake a long time until necessary information is obtained.

OBJECT AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

With the above in view, an object of this invention is to provide aninformation providing and collecting apparatus which can rapidly obtainand reproduce information, e.g., news, etc., and which can preserve onlya necessary portion of such information, and retrieve or reproduce thenecessary information with ease in the future.

A first information providing and collecting apparatus of this inventionhas been proposed in the order to attain the above-desired object.Namely, this apparatus comprises a selector means for selecting aspecific portion of information recorded in a primary recording medium,and is adapted to record select information indicating the specificportion of the information from the selector means into the primaryrecording medium, and to transfer the information of the specificportion specified by the select information to a secondary recordingmedium.

Further, a second information providing and collecting apparatus of thisinvention comprises reproducing means for reproducing informationrecorded in a primary recording medium, selector means for selecting aportion to be transferred to a secondary recording medium of theinformation recorded in the primary recording medium, and recordingmeans for recording the select information specified by the selectormeans into the primary recording medium.

In addition, a third information providing and collecting apparatusincludes recording/reproducing means for recording, onto a secondaryrecording medium, only a portion specified by select informationindicating a specific portion of recorded information in a primaryrecording medium where information including that select information isrecorded.

The third information providing and collecting apparatus comprisesreproducing means for information recorded on the secondary recordingmedium, and further comprises retrieving means for retrieving thecontent of the primary recording medium on the basis of informationrecorded on the secondary recording medium.

In the above-mentioned first, second and third information providing andcollecting apparatuses, audio information, picture information andcharacter information are included in information recorded in theprimary recording medium. This primary recording medium is comprised ofa semiconductor memory.

Further, in the above-mentioned first and second information providingand collecting apparatuses, information recorded in the primaryrecording medium is information recorded while being divided in point oftime by information dividing means. This information dividing meansdetects a specific signal to carry out division of information. It is tobe noted that selection of the specific portion of information is madeby carrying out inputting to the selector means during reproduction ofany portion of the information. In addition, at the time of transfer tothe secondary recording medium, date information is recorded onto thesecondary recording medium.

A fourth information providing and collecting apparatus of thisinvention comprises signal input means adapted so that a signal isinputted thereto, signal converting means for converting that inputsignal, information dividing means for dividing output information ofthe signal converting means, and recording means for recording outputinformation of the signal converting means and divided information.Here, the information dividing means serves to carry out the division inaccordance with detection of specific information from outputinformation of the signal converting means. Additionally, this apparatuscomprises radio signal receiving means as the signal input means.

Further, the first to fourth information providing and collectingapparatuses of this invention comprise clock means so that dateinformation can be recorded.

A fifth information providing and collecting apparatus of this inventioncomprises adding means for adding an information division signal to asignal outputted. Here, the information division signal is a signal of aspecific frequency. By using this signal, it is possible to transmitinformation by radio or by wire.

The recording medium of this invention is a recording medium in whichinformation including transfer indication information to a secondaryrecording medium is recorded. Into the recording medium of thisinvention, information including audio information, informationincluding picture information, information including characterinformation, and information including date information are recorded.This recording medium is preferably comprised of a semiconductor memory.

In accordance with the information providing and collecting apparatus, auser of this apparatus operates means for selecting information requiredfor preservation at the time of reproducing information, or the like totransfer only information specified by the select information to therecording medium, thereby making it possible to easily preservenecessary information.

Namely, in accordance with this invention, a user of the informationrecording/reproducing device (portable recorder) of the informationproviding and collecting apparatus operates selector means for selectinginformation required to be preserved at the time of reproduction ofinformation, or the like to transfer only information specified by theselect information to the recording medium, thereby making it possibleto easily preserve necessary information. Accordingly, it is possible torapidly obtain or reproduce information such as news, etc., and toeasily record only the necessary portion thereof onto the secondaryrecording medium. Thus, it is possible to retrieve or reproducenecessary information with ease another day.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a circuit diagram showing, in a block form, the outline of theconfiguration of an information recording/reproducing device of aninformation providing and collecting apparatus according to a firstembodiment of this invention.

FIG. 2 is a view for explaining the content to be recorded into aprimary recording medium used in the device shown in FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a circuit diagram showing, in a block form, the outline of theconfiguration of an information secondary recording/reproducing deviceapplied to the information providing and collecting apparatus of thefirst embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a schematic perspective view showing appearance of theinformation recording/reproducing device shown in FIG. 1.

FIG. 5 is a schematic perspective view showing appearance of aninformation providing device of the information providing and collectingapparatus of the first embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a schematic perspective view showing appearance of theinformation secondary recording/reproducing device shown in FIG. 3.

FIG. 7 is a circuit diagram showing, in a block form, the outline of theconfiguration of an information recording/reproducing device of aninformation providing and collecting apparatus of a second embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a view for explaining the content to be recorded into aprimary recording medium used in the apparatus of the second embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a schematic perspective view showing appearance of theinformation recording/reproducing device shown in FIG. 7.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

Preferred embodiments of this invention will now be described withreference to the attached drawings.

FIG. 1 shows the configuration of an information recording/reproducingdevice of an information providing and collecting apparatus of a firstembodiment. Namely, this information recording/reproducing device 10comprises, as shown in FIG. 1, information recording means 14 forrecording information into a primary recording medium 20, informationreproducing means 15 for reproducing information recorded in the primaryrecording medium 20, and information selector means 11 and reproductionselector means 12 as selector means for selecting a specific portion ofinformation recorded in the primary recording medium 20. The informationrecording means 14 is controlled by control means 13 so as to recordselect information indicating a specific portion of the information fromthe information selector means 11 into the primary recording medium 20.Further, the information reproducing means 15 is controlled by thecontrol means 13 so as to reproduce the information of the specificportion specified by the select information from the primary recordingmedium 20 to transfer the reproduced information to a secondaryrecording medium which will be described later.

In FIG. 1, user can selectively reproduce the content of the primaryrecording medium 20 by using the reproduction selector means 12.Although the content of information in the primary recording medium 20is not particularly limited, explanation will be given on the premisethat, in this embodiment, e.g., news information is recorded as audioinformation and text information, and key word information is addedthereto.

Select information from the reproduction selector means 12 based onselection by user is sent to information reproducing means 15 throughcontrol means 13. This information reproducing means 15 selects anarbitrary audio information from the primary recording medium 20 on thebasis of select information from the reproduction selector means 12 toreproduce it. The audio information thus selected and reproduced is sentto sound generating means, e.g., earphone or speaker, etc. throughterminal 17.

A user of the information recording/reproducing device 10 specifies,through the information selector means 11, a portion that he wishes toobtain a backup copy for future use while listening to sound from thesound generating means. The specified information from the informationselector means 11 is recorded into the primary recording medium 20 asflag information through control means 13 and information recordingmeans 14.

An example of the content recorded in the primary recording medium 20 isshown in FIG. 2.

In FIG. 2, at the first address of the primary recording medium 20, thenumber of information indicating how many information are recorded inthe recording medium 20 is recorded. In this embodiment, N number ofinformation are recorded.

At addresses subsequent thereto, storage address information S₁ ˜S_(N)indicating memory location of N sets of information, and flaginformation F₁ ˜F_(N) indicating whether or not these information shouldbe recorded onto the secondary recording medium are recorded.Subsequently to those addresses, N sets of information of, e.g., keyword information K₁ ˜K_(N), audio information A₁ ˜A_(N), and textinformation T₁ ˜T_(N) are recorded.

The above-mentioned storage address information S consists of, in apractical sense, key word information leading address, key wordinformation end information, audio information leading address, audioinformation end address, text information leading address, and textinformation end address. Further, flag information F consists of, in apractical sense, a key word information recording flag, an audioinformation recording flag, and a text information recording flag.

The flag information F is determined so that when the value of the flaginformation F is "1", information corresponding thereto is recorded ontothe secondary recording medium, while when that value is not "1" (is"0"), information corresponding thereto is not recorded onto thesecondary recording medium. For example, at the time point wheninformation is transferred from an information providing device whichwill be described to the primary recording medium 20, it is sufficientto set the flag information F to "0". The flag information F₁ ˜F_(N) canbe provided respectively with respect to key word information K₁ ˜K_(N),audio information A₁ ˜A_(N), and text information T₁ ˜T_(N). Forexample, a user of the information recording/reproducing device 10 cangive an instruction to record, onto a secondary recording medium whichwill be described later, only text information T corresponding to speechbased on audio information A while listening to that speech.

It is to be noted that there may be employed as a matter of course ascheme of recording, e.g., date information, etc. in which thisinformation is transferred from the information providing device whichwill be described later in addition to flag information F or storageaddress information S to permit this information onto the secondaryrecording medium, thus to utilize date information at the time ofreproduction or retrieval in an information secondaryrecording/reproducing device which will be described below.

FIG. 3 shows an actual configuration of information secondaryrecording/reproducing device 60 applied to the information providing andcollecting apparatus according to the first embodiment of thisinvention.

In FIG. 3, primary recording medium reading means 114 reads the contentof the primary recording medium 20 to send, to secondary recordingmedium writing means 115, only information specified to be recorded ontosecondary recording medium 116 by the flag information F. This secondaryrecording medium writing means 115 records this information onto thesecondary recording medium 116 along with storage address information Swith respect to the secondary recording medium 116.

It is to be noted that, e.g., a magneto-optical disk may be used as thesecondary recording medium 116. While, in this embodiment, thissecondary recording medium 116 is disposed within the informationsecondary recording/reproducing device 60, that medium may be detachablydisposed.

The information recorded onto the secondary recording medium 116 in thisway is reproduced by reproducing means 117 under control of reproductioncontrol means 113 on the basis of reproduction indication informationgiven through retrieving means 111 or reproduction selector means 112 bythe user (reproduction indication information from the retrieving means111 or reproduction indication information from reproduction selectormeans 112). Thus, it is possible to readily reproduce a necessaryportion of information recorded on the secondary recording medium 116.Reproduced information from the reproducing means 117 is outputted fromterminal 118. An output from the terminal 118 is sent to soundgenerating means, e.g., a speaker, etc.

While, in the above-described embodiment, e.g., audio information, e.g.,news information, etc. is exemplified as the content in the primaryrecording medium 20, the content of such information may be not onlyaudio information but also, e.g., various information including, e.g.,text information or video information, etc. along with audioinformation. Namely, the content of information in the primary recordingmedium is not particularly limited.

As stated above, in the case where reproduced information obtained fromthe recording medium is, e.g., text information or video information, itis possible to display it on the display means, e.g., a liquid crystaldisplay, etc. On the other hand, in the case where reproducedinformation is, e.g., audio information, it is possible to output it tothe sound generating means, etc. in a manner previously described.

Further, the kind of primary recording medium 20 is not particularlylimited in this invention, but various recording media may be used.Especially, it is preferable to use a semiconductor memory which cancopy information at a high speed, is easy to be accessed at random, andis excellent in portability.

FIG. 4 shows the outline of appearance of informationrecording/reproducing device 10 and primary recording medium 20 of theabove-described first embodiment. Appearance of an information providingdevice 50 of the information providing and collecting apparatus of thisembodiment is shown in FIG. 5. In FIGS. 4 and 5, the case where audioinformation, text information or video information, etc. is handled asthe content of information in the recording medium is taken as anexample.

In FIG. 4, an information providing device connection terminal 21 isprovided at the primary recording medium 20 of this embodiment.Accordingly, it is possible to make copying of information from theinformation providing device 50 of FIG. 5 to the primary recordingmedium 20.

Further, the information recording/reproducing device 10 of FIG. 4 isprovided with display means 34, e.g., liquid crystal display, etc., andselector means 31 having both functions of reproduction selector means12 and information selector means 11 of FIG. 1, which is comprised of,e.g., a push button switch or a touch switch, etc. On the display means34, the content of information recorded in the informationrecording/reproducing device 10 can be displayed. As stated above, inthe device 10 of FIG. 4, in the case where reproduced informationobtained from the primary recording medium 20 is, e.g., text informationor video information, that information is displayed on the display means34, and in the case where reproduced information is, e.g., audioinformation, that information is outputted to an earphone 32, etc.

User of the information recording/reproducing device 10 can selectivelyreproduce necessary information by using selector means 31 such as pushbutton switch, etc. on the basis of information content displayed on thedisplay means 34 or sound from earphone 32.

It is to be noted that although not illustrated in FIG. 4, it is amatter of course that a speaker may be equipped in place of the earphone32, or in addition to earphone 32. In that case, a reproduced result ofthe audio information may be outputted to the speaker. In addition,reproduced information may be outputted to an external CRT (Cathode RayTube) or an external speaker, etc. by using external terminals althoughnot illustrated in FIG. 4.

While, in the example of FIG. 4, the primary recording medium 20 isdetachably provided, it may be fixedly provided within the informationrecording/reproducing device 10.

FIG. 5 shows the outline of appearance of an information providingdevice of the information providing and collecting apparatus accordingto the first embodiment of this invention.

In FIG. 5, a recording medium is provided within the informationproviding device 50. Information is recorded in the recording medium.Although omitted in FIG. 5, it is preferable that information recordedin the recording medium is transmitted by information transmitting meansby wire or radio. It is a matter of course that a recorded recordingmedium is adapted to be inserted into the information providing device50.

In the information providing device 50 of FIG. 5, there are provided aplurality of display means 54 for displaying the content of informationrecorded or price, etc., and output selector means 51 for selectingwhich information is outputted from the information providing device 50in correspondence with respective display means 54. Thus, a person whowishes to obtain information (a user) can select desired information.Acquisition of information is realized by inserting primary recordingmedium 20 that user has into a pocket 56 for insertion or ejection ofthe information providing device 50 to receive a copy thereof.

FIG. 6 shows an actual appearance of the above-mentioned informationsecondary recording/reproducing device 60 of FIG. 3.

When primary recording medium 20 of FIG. 4 is inserted into a primaryrecording medium insertion pocket 63 of the information secondaryrecording/reproducing device 60, it is possible to transfer the contentof information recorded in the primary recording medium 20 to secondaryrecording medium (secondary recording medium 116 of FIG. 3) providedthere within.

Also in the information secondary recording/reproducing device 60,display means 64 and/or speaker 65 similar to the above are provided.Thus, it is possible to output, to the display means 64 or the speaker65, information based on selection by selector means 61 (having bothfunctions of reproduction selector means 112 and retrieving means 111 ofFIG. 3).

It is to be noted that while, in the example of FIG. 6, the secondaryrecording medium (116) is fixedly provided within the informationsecondary recording/reproducing device 60, it is a matter of course thatsuch medium may be detachably provided.

As stated above, the content recorded on the secondary recording medium(116) may be repeatedly reproduced in future, or necessary portionthereof may be retrieved and reproduced.

The outline of the configuration of information recording/reproducingdevice 40 of an information providing and collecting apparatus accordingto a second embodiment of this invention is shown in FIG. 7.

In FIG. 7, e.g., audio information received from the external through,e.g., information receiving means 214 is sent to information dividingmeans 215. This information dividing means 215 divides audio informationsent thereto in point of time on the basis of the content of audioinformation to record it into a primary recording medium 217 throughinformation recording means 216 every divided audio information.Division of audio information in point of time resultantly leads togeneration of storage address information in the case where recordinginto the primary recording medium 217 is carried out. The manner ofrecording into the primary recording medium 217 is shown in FIG. 8.

In FIG. 8, the maximum values of the numbers of storage addressinformation S and flag information F are determined in advance, and thestorage area consisting of storage address information S₁ ˜S_(N) andflag information F₁ ˜F_(N) is caused to fall within a predeterminedrange. In the case of FIG. 8, storage address information S consists ofan audio information leading address and an audio information endaddress, and flag information F consists of audio information recordingflag.

In this embodiment, the first audio information A₁ is recordedimmediately after the storage area. It is to be noted that, in carryingout division of information, e.g., a soundless (no sound) portion morethan a predetermined time is detected, thus making it possible to dividethe information with every soundless portion. Further, there may beemployed a method of inserting in advance sound of a specific frequencyevery partition of information to detect it, thus to realize division ofinformation.

After information has been recorded once into the primary recordingmedium 217 in this way, the device of this embodiment operates in amanner similar to the device of the first embodiment.

Namely, turning back to FIG. 7, a user can selectively reproduce thecontent of the primary recording medium 217 by using reproductionselector means 212. Select information from the reproduction selectormeans 212 based on selection by the user is sent to informationreproducing means 218 through control means 213. This informationreproducing means 218 selects and reproduces arbitrary audio informationfrom the primary recording medium 217 on the basis of select informationfrom the reproduction selector means 212. The audio information thusselected and reproduced is sent to sound generating means, e.g., anearphone or a speaker, etc. through terminal 220.

Further, a user of this information recording/reproducing device 40specifies a portion that he wishes to obtain a backup copy for futureuse through information selector means 211 while listening to sound fromthe sound generating means. The specified information from theinformation selector means 211 is recorded into the primary recordingmedium 217 as flag information through control means 213 and informationrecording means 216.

In the information recording/reproducing device 40 of FIG. 7,information from the primary recording medium 217 is adapted to be alsodirectly taken out from terminal 221.

Also in the above-described second embodiment, information received bythe information receiving means 214 may be not only the above-describedaudio information but also a video signal, etc. Accordingly, such avideo signal, etc. is recorded into the primary recording medium 217. Inthe case where reproduced information obtained from the primaryrecording medium 217 is, e.g., the text information or videoinformation, that information can be displayed on the display meanscomprised of, e.g., a liquid crystal display, etc. On the other hand, inthe case where reproduced information is, e.g., audio information, thatinformation can be outputted to sound generating means, etc. in a mannersimilar to the above.

Further, as with the primary recording medium 20, of the firstembodiment various recording media may be used similarly to the firstembodiment. Particularly, it is preferable to use a semiconductor memorywhich can copy information at a high speed, is easy to be accessed atrandom, and is excellent in portability.

FIG. 9 shows the outline of appearance of the above-describedinformation recording/reproducing device 40 shown in FIG. 7.

The information recording/reproducing device 40 shown in FIG. 9 has,e.g., a function of a radio receiver as well. For this reason, anantenna 42 is disposed. Through this antenna 42, audio information, etc.is sent from the external. Further, in the informationrecording/reproducing device 40 shown in FIG. 9, there are also providedan information secondary recording/reproducing device connectionterminal 43 connecting between the information recording/reproducingdevice 40 and the information secondary recording/reproducing device 60shown in FIG. 6, display means 44 for display, and selector means 41having both functions of reproduction selector means 212 and informationselector means 211 of FIG. 7. In addition, an earphone 32 can beconnected to the information recording/reproducing device 40. It is tobe noted that, in the information recording/reproducing device 40 ofFIG. 9, primary recording medium (primary recording medium 217 of FIG.7) is mounted within the device 40.

As described above, in accordance with respective embodiments of thisinvention, a user of the information recording/reproducing device(portable recorder) of the information providing and collectingapparatus operates selector means for selecting information required forpreservation at the time of reproduction of that information, or thelike to transfer only information specified by that select informationto the recording medium, thereby making it possible to easily preservenecessary information.

It is to be noted that, as means for inputting information into theprimary recording medium used in this embodiment, a large number ofmeans other than means employed in the above-described embodiments areconceivable. There is conceivable a method of recording information suchas sound, etc. by using a recorder with information conversion function,e.g., a device adapted to apply A/D (analog/digital) conversion to aninput signal from microphone to record a digital signal thus obtained.Various methods including such a method are included in this invention.

In addition, a recorder adapted for recording information into theprimary recording medium is caused to have a clock function to alsorecord information of date at which recording is carried out from a time(clock) recording, thereby making it possible to facilitate retrieval ofthe information content.

What is claimed is:
 1. An information providing and collecting apparatuscomprising:a signal input for receiving an input signal carryinginformation, wherein said input signal is an audio signal or an audiovisual signal; an information dividing circuit for dividing said inputsignal into information segments based on a break in said informationbeing carried by said input signal or a marker in said input signalgenerated by a user indicating an end of an information segment; and arecorder for recording said input signal as discrete informationsegments in accordance with divisions made by said information dividingcircuit.
 2. The information providing and collecting apparatus as setforth in claim 1, wherein said dividing circuit makes a division in saidinput signal in response to said break in said information carried bysaid input signal when said input signal does not carry information fora predetermined period of time.
 3. The information providing andcollecting apparatus as set forth in claim 1, wherein said signal inputcomprises a radio signal receiver and said input signal is an audiosignal received in a radio broadcast by said radio signal receiver. 4.The information providing and collecting apparatus as set forth in claim1, which further comprises a clock circuit for identifying a time atwhich an information segment is received through said input signal,wherein said recorder records said time in association with thatinformation segment.
 5. The information providing and collectingapparatus as set forth in claim 1, wherein said recorder comprises aport for receiving a recording medium on which said information of saidinput signal is recorded.
 6. The information providing and collectingapparatus as set forth in claim 5, wherein said recording medium is asemiconductor recording medium.
 7. The information providing andcollecting apparatus as set forth in claim 1, further comprising a userinput device for controlling reception and recording of said inputsignal.
 8. The information providing and collecting apparatus as setforth in claim 1, further comprising a user input device for flagginginformation segments recorded by said recorder for further processing.9. The information providing and collecting apparatus as set forth inclaim 1, further comprising a user input device for retrieving and usinginformation recorded by said recorder.